Rofl, lots of discussion here. Maybe you should just call it a day, the fundraiser is at 101 % as i am typing this. Congratulations on a successful Fundraising. Gisselle

5/5/2006 LoL! It's a good thing that there's no discussion, means people agree :P Tattersail

Donation that allows you access to the forum? That's called a fee. Donation is a nice word though... means you don't owe them anything if they want their money back if you don't hold up your end of the agreement. I posted an article on wiki simply because of how open and free it was. By having such things as forums so people could discuss the many projects here.

Also such arguements as "It's been on the forum for weeks" no longer stand.. as now there is a fee to get to the forum. Not to mention "We don't get any money for doing this" when now there is a fee to look at the forum.

How long is it before there is a fee to look at the main pages of this site?

P.S. Why 12k? Seems a huge amount for a simple server and bandwidth.--Drow 16:19, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Where did it say anything about a donation that allowed you to "access the forum"? It said a donation would grant you a forum rank. That means you would get a cute little thing under your name that said something like "FFXIclopedia supporter!" and a cute image. No extra privileges. Nothing different. Regarding your comment about 12k seeming steep for a simple server and bandwidth, note where it said two web servers and one database server. 2+1=3. $12k / 3 = $4k. So that's roughly $4k / server, which is a pretty reasonable estimate for how much a high powered server costs.--Divisortheory 17:29, 6 February 2007 (EST)

I am not going to delete the above, but please try not to spread any misinformation. This is a fundraiser so that the FFXIclopedia can remain intact, nothing more. This is not a subscription, does not grant or deny any access, and frankly doesn't change anything at all (except to keep the resource). If you give $1 you get a forum title/icon. Larger donations result in the mousepad/t-shirt. So just to be clear, there is no fee to get to the forums. There is no fee to get to the wiki. There is no fee to use the blogs. (Nor have we sold out to RMT owners/advertisers, nor to pop-up advertisers.) Based on all of that, and the tremendous growth, we need to raise money in some way - hence a fundraiser, which seeks donations only. This is a community project through and through. And as long as the community supports the site we will remain.

As for the costs, we have done a lot of price shopping and believe that the quotes we've been given are very reasonable. This site is truly enormous as far as storage, usage and bandwidth. It takes a lot of horsepower to maintain and run.

Finally, I think discussion on the fundraiser is best left to the forums. --Gahoo 18:40, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Apologies – I was not trying to spread any misinformation. Perhaps I misread something or something was edited since (3 times after my post). Anyway as far as servers go: I’ve known large companies to have smaller budget and have multiple web servers and backups and had their own MAN (Metropolitan Area Network). The software is all completely free it’s only the hardware and bandwidth that will cost.

A friend of mine worked in London and had a budget of £7k (US = 14k dollars) and ran multiple web servers and their backups.

Not to mention it’s not just 12k donation money but is also money from advertisement that is gained… so you can see why I don’t understand why the price is 12k.

Anyway anything further I'll post in the forums as suggested. Was just repling.--Drow 19:23, 6 February 2007 (EST)

It would not only have to do with the server's but the pipe they are on atm as well I'm guessing. If you're getting as much traffic as this site is getting now, and will be getting in the future, I'm pretty sure a standard coloc box in some backwater hosting company with a per/gb traffic pricing module is not going to be the best option for you.

If I read correctly 3 machines, now say each machine is $1500 to be spec'd out fairly nicely (the 1RU sitting in my room from a year ago cost me that and it's doing nothing.. stupid FFXI eat up all my time), there's $4500, leaving $7500 to pay for a fairly nice large fat pipe for it to sit on.

I know all about hosting and bandwidth costs, I cop them monthly, so when I saw that figure I knew what was going down. --Schultz 22:55, 6 February 2007 (EST)

There is also the advertisement money but that's an unknown atm, also I'm curious to know if it's server parts or whole new machines that are needed, or if only 2 new machines are needed and one web server will be the current old one. Regardless of what company you go through they often all use the same cables in the street, a lot of people are still dealing with the CAT5 (about 10 years behind the industry standard) instead of the CAT5E believe it or not. If the suppier for the bandwidth is the problem then you might be out of luck and might need to register yourself as a company in order to get a bigger bandwidth, or an academic one - which I doubt very much you guys can do. It will also depend on location.

I'm not sure about the US but in the UK you can buy a company for say, about 50 pounds (roughly 100 dollars)... and get a grant to get that company up and running. Usually for the first 2 years the company deals fine but after that you need to make it on your own. You could do that with the site, use the grant money for the servers etc. That way you will only have to meet the bandwidth costs each year rather than all the hardware issues. Also any debt the company builds dies with the company, not you.

I've made some smaller networks for 2 companys so far but not personally on a large scale - few friends of mine have and with a lower budget so I was a little surprised with the cost. --Drow 11:08, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Companies in the US are granted no money for starting, they have to start up with their own money. Needless to say, after shopping around, the admins decided on a plan, and it will cost them $12,000 to implement. As far as ad money is concerned, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed (on a month to month basis). It's certainly nice, but no one is making a living off donations here. This site truly is run with support from viewers like you ;) --Chrisjander 12:25, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Drow, I don't think you realize the traffic that FFXIclopedia is experiencing. Here is the chart:

MonthUnique visitorsNumber of visitsPagesHitsBandwidth*
Jan 20058473207382262847501.61 GB
Feb 20055942608322642166691.52 GB
Mar 2005313765461548794460353.07 GB
Apr 2005450696511945885851534.66 GB
May 20055819128261941965962804.58 GB
Jun 20057867168152348818109655.55 GB
Jul 20059804210863354879952736.13 GB
Aug 200599062292036403110671506.98 GB
Sep 200584581967438948710419568.01 GB
Oct 20051647036957520786162336711.58 GB
Nov 20051494738865545757203539411.88 GB
Dec 20052029260286633837304520314.03 GB
Jan 20062527679873923515422531920.66 GB
‡Feb 20061772155021743244294585014.54 GB
Mar 2006339561131081338284555878230.33 GB
Apr 2006433791491511800866677726243.85 GB
May 20066486821275530653971035643174.96 GB
†June 2006
†July 2006
August 20061169045624841168869531569491245.91 GB

Last February we did a campaign to raise $900.00. The purpose was to raise money to move off of Gani's small server to another one which could handle a little more traffic. We were running at roughly 20-30 GB of bandwidth and the move gave us space up to about 100GB. Even 100 GB is more than any of the servers you've talked about. But this was just to rent space on an existing server. This included no hardware costs.

As you can see, by August, we were even double our original estimates of capacity and the wiki really started to slow. This thing has exploded faster and bigger than even we imagined. We have elected to move off of someone else's server and start our own. And the one we want to start needs to be big enough to handle the projected growth of the wiki. These servers need to be exponentially larger and more powerful than anything your friends may have set up. Those companies aren't geting over 30 million hits a month. That's why their servers are cheaper.

If you can't conceive of why these servers are so expensive, it's because you've never had experience with servers and sites that have as much traffic as the wiki experiences. And we can't just buy servers that equal current bandwidth limitations. We need to exceed those limitations so we're not running into the same problems 3 months down the road.

Trust me. This price tag is apropos. --Mierin 12:33, 7 February 2007 (EST)

As for the ad money ... it really is pennies. I think Gani may have received $200.00 total for like 2 years of use. --Mierin 12:34, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Drow, you have a beef with this web site. No one makes you use this site. No one is making you pay to use the forums. No one is making you pay to use the wiki. No one is making you do anything. You don't like it, then don't use the site. Simple as that. --Ganiman 13:09, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Oh yeah, Mierin's chart is outdated. We use well over 600gb of bandwidth a month now, and it still increases each month. I doubt anyone involved on this discussion page has any experience running a web site of that magnitude. Drow, don't act like we don't know what we're doing. I code and maintain a large insurance website for a living - I know what I'm doing --Ganiman 13:20, 7 February 2007 (EST)

As above, the above chart has not slowed down. For example, last month vs August 2005:

MonthUnique visitorsNumber of visitsPagesHitsBandwidth*
August 2006116,904562,48411,688,69531569491245.91 GB
January 2007233,0351,660,58917,183,354???~600GB

or better yet:

MonthUnique visitorsNumber of visitsPagesHitsBandwidth*
Jan 20058473,20738,226284,7501.61 GB
Jan 200625,27679,873923,515422,531920.66 GB
Jan 2007233,0351,660,58917,183,354???~600GB

--Gahoo 13:25, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Ganiman If I truely did not like the website and had a beef with it I really wouldn't use it, you don't need to instruct me of my rights. As you are fully aware (as you have replied them) in the past I've given praise and expressed positive comments and feelings about both the management and community that is ffxiclopedia, on both the ffxiclopedia website, forums and other forums. Although it is true that there are several aspects of the website that I dislike and I have voiced equally as loud. Everyone is entitled to voice such things are they not? So please do not try to spread word on me trying to make you look bad.

Please do not misunderstand me - I'm not claiming anyone here does not know what they are doing. If I did I would simply come out and say it. I was however finding it hard to understand, in my and my friends experiences that the money needed was a fair bit higher than expected for the job. A good friend of mine has coded and managed whole rooms full of internet servers (let alone 3) for a living, made some good money, and is now doing the same course as I am so please don't think I know nothing of what large company servers require either.

Thanks for all your replies though. Many were very helpful.--Drow 15:46, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Just because a company is large, doesn't mean it gets lots of traffic on it's website. Northrup-Grumman (Alexa traffic rank 57,727) may be the largest government contractor, and Turner Broadcasting (Alexa traffic rank 53,254) may be one of the largest cable companies, but that doesn't mean they get 30 million hits a day on their website. FFXIclopedia's Traffic Rank is 15,492. Our point is that it doesn't matter how big the company is your friend has experience with, unless we're talking Google. Big company does not equal enormous web traffic. So the costs required by Northrup-Grumman and Turner Broadcasting to manage their website are a lot less than what we require because our traffic is so much greater.
In sum, when you say, "I was however finding it hard to understand, in my and my friends experiences that the money needed was a fair bit higher than expected for the job." Yours and your friend's experience, are not the same as ours. You find it hard to understand because you've never experienced web traffic numbers like we have. --Mierin 17:10, 7 February 2007 (EST)
Yes, that's exactly what I was saying.--Drow 18:36, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I have to agree with Mierin. Regardless of the size of the company,it doesn't mean that they receive lots of traffic. I've worked with AT&T, Unisys, DRC, and lots of government agencies and other contracting agencies and it's the same thing as what Mierin said. I work currently in a NOC (network operations center) and I can see the traffic that comes and goes to the site at any given time. 600 GB of bandwidth is a lot of bandwidth even for large companies. Someone has to pay for it. This site has done nothing but grow in popularity since day one. It provides more up-to-date information than any of its rivals. People recognize that and they return to it and they tell others about it. It's better than any book would ever be.

Running servers and sites costs a lot of money. Running my own server will cost me $2,400 this year without a ton of traffic. What a lot of people do not understand is that bandwith costs money. I'm sure with the amount of data that is being changed on a daily basis, it is a lot of bandwidth. There is a basic economic principle: "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Even though we get this information for free, it is really at the expense of the ones who are hosting it. It could easily costs them $800 per month to run this site. Still and yet, someone has to pay for it and they are not forcing anyone to do that. Regardless of the figures, they are asking for a little assistance since it provides information to the community at large. This is no different than what Wikipedia does as well. I'm sure the numbers probably reflect what the expected growth will be like in the next few months and lets hope that there's not another relapse like last year when the bandwidth exceeded pages started popping up.

They're doing a good job keeping it up and running. It takes time and effort and the people who are running this site I'm sure have families, work and or school to deal with. I don't throw a lot of questions with regards to the cost because I know what it takes to run a site like this. They provided the statistics, let us start providing the cash. --amujaahideen 17:37, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Any chance we can see picutres of the mouse pad and tshirt? Could be the difference between $10 and $25 ;) --Thalandor46 18:18, 7 February 2007 (PST)

The picture is in the works, from what I hear from Ganiman. --Chrisjander 21:29, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I expect to have images for people to see what they are getting sometime this weekend. The image will be the same for the mousepad and the t-shirt. --Ganiman 10:02, 8 February 2007 (EST)

Why do the different pages report different numbers for the Total amount collected so far? I thought maybe it was because the admins are manually editing the totals at various intervals and forgetting to update the Project Page, but I just saw that page jump from around $290 to somewhere in the $400 range, even though all the other pages had been well over $400 for quite some time.--Divisortheory 23:11, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Just refresh your cache and you should see the updated amount. It is a global status bar so it will be the same everywhere. --Gahoo 08:44, 8 February 2007 (EST)
The reason for that is that the wiki caches every page on the server. Until that article is either updated or purged some how, you will see an "old" status bar. Every time I update the bar, I purge the main page so the main page will always be up to date. I'd rather not force a purge on all 17,000+ articles every time I update it. The "out of date" pages will update themselves eventually. If you want to see the latest, view the main page. The whole caching thing is in place to save some calls to the database and help site performance. --Ganiman 09:59, 8 February 2007 (EST)

Not sure where else this goes, but I noticed in the advertisement the other day (I have a screenshot if you would like to see it) about where and how to purchase gil. Not sure if you're concerned about this but buying and selling gil does break the FFXI rules, just thought it should be brought to your attention. --Drow 06:49, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Buying and selling gil is against the FFXI rules?!? Why didn't anyone tell me this?!? I never knew this!!! Holy cow. Someone stop the presses: buying and selling gil is against FFXI rules!!!
Seriously ... wtf ...
Google ads places gil selling ads all the time, adding new ones everyday. Gani upon noticing them, usually immediately adds those sites to his no include list. You probably caught one in the 5 nanosecods before Gani saw and deleted it. This is not an issue. Don't worry about it. They shouldn't be there and usually get deleted. But we aren't perfect. They do slip through for 5 nanoseconds here or there. --Mierin 09:26, 26 February 2007 (EST)
You're not perfect? Wow... man now I'm disappointed. </3 --Drow 09:34, 26 February 2007 (EST)
I would just like to add to Drows observation that I have see the particular advert for buying and selling gil he mentions a few times on the site, not just today but over the course of a few weeks. But on average I see at a adverts by google for selling and buying gil/powerlvling services at least once every hour. This could be just due to the fact adverts are random and ffxiclopedia admins have not seen it, but i know when they do, they sort it out. And though I know the ads are by google and not the site I feel Mierins reaction to this issue was not constructive as I thought bringing issues (like the advertising of buying and selling gil) to the attention of the admin of ffxiclopedia was a good thing. But it seems in this case it was a chance to flex some proverbial muscles and brush this users concerns under the rug --Shrew 10:11, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Or, it was a little frustration vented at someone who has a history of poking the admins in the ribs with little jabs every now and then. Just read this entire page for an example. Especially with the comment: "Not sure if you're concerned about this but buying and selling gil does break the FFXI rules." Drow takes every possible chance to point out something he thinks we are doing wrong. Maybe he is just innocently trying to help, but the way he says it is very condescending and irksome. Especially when he is implying that we are advocating the buying and selling of gil like Alla or Somepage, it is really going to raise the ire of the admins.
So if you feel my response is not constructive or "flexing some proverbial muscles," know the whole story before you comment. Yes, bringing such ads to our attention is a good thing. No, insulting us while you do so and implying we advocate such practices, is not. --Mierin 10:20, 26 February 2007 (EST)
This is the wrong place to talk about gil selling ads appearing in the google adsense ad rotation. Drow, you really like to nit pick and complain. If you want to speak up, do it in the right place. This discussion has absolutely nothing to do with the fund raiser. If you are unsure, ASK. Please start a thread on the forums for this and I will monitor it and add the sites in question to the adsense ad filter. I honestly can't believe you're complaining about this (yeah, you're complaining) when this site has the LEAST amount of gil selling ads show up on our google adsense rotation. --Ganiman 10:28, 26 February 2007 (EST)
Just notice you said this on this talk page... "Anyway anything further I'll post in the forums as suggested. Was just repling.--Drow 19:23, 6 February 2007 (EST)" and yet.. you didn't. --Ganiman 10:39, 26 February 2007 (EST)
Where on the forum should I post it? --Drow 10:44, 26 February 2007 (EST)